A MAN LIVING LIFE DELIBERATELY

The Growing Nigerian Rape Culture

Over the past few days, I have gone over various comments on articles I have posted on my blog, especially the ones that have to do with rape, and I must confess, some comments are quite saddening and often disgusting. I simply find it hard to understand why a person in this day, and in this century still feels rape stories are made up, some comments try to lay the blame at the feet of the victim, often with words like, “what was she doing there”, or “she has been asking for it” or worst still “don’t mind her, the guy didn’t give her the money she was expecting”.

When I view comments like that, it really gets me mad, because how would such a person react, if a loved one was a victim of rape? Would they take up torches and pitch forks and burn down the town looking for the rapist?

Almost on a daily basis, we read stories and see images, and even videos, most of which are too disgusting to view, and yet some individuals still claim these stories are false? How do you think victims of this sordid act would feel after reading such comments, it could be compared to being raped all over again.

How would you feel if you has someone standing over you, or behind you for that matter, forcing their way into you, ignoring your pleas for help, and then when you summon up enough courage and come forward with your story, someone now simply says, you are either telling lies, or you were asking for it.

A few months ago, a rape video went viral, students raping a lady, and taping it, they laughed as she begged, a lot tweeted about it, a lot re posted it, a lot downloaded it, we all screamed blue murder, and yet it died down, we moved on, recently another popped up, the same noise followed, and it has died down, sordid images of women being raped and murdered, we make the same noise and move on, some people even have the guts to leave such images and videos on their timeline, where is the sense in that? How would you feel if that were the image of your sister, girlfriend, or friend, or even someone you know?

Somewhere, a woman is being raped as you read this, you are not there, you will never feel what she feels, you will never have the nightmares she is having, you will never carry the weight she carries, but that notwithstanding, it simply does not give anyone the right to blame a victim, or even insinuate the fact that, she might be telling a lie, simply put, if you do that, then you are no better than the rapist, because that’s just raping her mind all over again, and in some extreme cases it leads to suicide, let’s take for instance Rehteah Parsons, in Nova Scotia, she was just 15, she was raped by a group of boys she knew, she even threw up during the act, but that didn’t stop them, and as if that was not enough, they took pictures, and began circulating them in her school, she began receiving dirty messages from boys asking her to sleep with them, messages of people calling her names, and actually taunting and blaming her for being raped, she couldn’t take it, for her death was her only way out, she took her own life, leaving her parents to grieve.

Now, are we going to blame this young woman for taking her own life?, who is going to blame the numerous boys and maybe even girls, who sent her all the obscene messages, who is going to blame the society for blaming the victim, unfortunately, she can’t blame anyone now, simply because the society that was meant to protect her and give her justice, is the same society that failed her, the same society that gives people the impression that sexually assaulting helpless women is either okay, or simply a birthright.

“A rapist rapes, simply because he feels he can”

Can you imagine how many women in Nigeria have been through similar ordeals, how men just feel they can rape a woman simply to satisfy his lustful desires, knowing full well that ordinarily he cannot be with her, so he does the next thing that comes to his mind, he takes her by force, he forces himself on her, and satisfies a barbaric need for sex, and then he threatens her with exposure or even death.

He is confident because he knows, the society will blame her, the society will always say she dressed provocatively, or she seduced him, or she played a game she wasn’t good at, or she simply got what she was asking for.

We have seen it too many times, even some parents do it, when a girl gets raped, and she falls pregnant, she is the one that gets kicked out of the house and called a harlot, all the man needs to do is deny, and for a couple of his friends to spread false rumors of promiscuity, and viola, the rape story goes away.

Women in Nigeria do not report rape, simply because nothing is done about it, and they end up being blamed for it, so they mostly pray hard not to fall victim of such an act.

The time has come to stop the growing rape culture in Nigeria, there was a growing rape culture in India, and they all blamed the women, until the most gruesome occurred, and a spotlight was shone on the country, and it led to a massive manhunt which in turn produced the rapists, but unfortunately the victim didn’t survive to see justice done to her. Are we going to wait until such happens here, before we realize this cancer spreading rapidly in our society?

Young girls are no longer safe on their campuses; they end up dating guys they don’t care for simply because the word “NO” does not exist in some men’s dictionaries, Young women are scared of taking buses or walking on the streets at night, simply because there might be some boogy man just waiting to pounce on her and take what does not belong to him, because he can and there are always usually no repercussions.

I can go on and on, and site various examples, but I think you get the point now, no woman on this earth asks to be raped, no woman says no when she means yes, no woman buys a pair of undies and says to herself, “I’m going to use this to provoke a stranger on the street, or rather provoke guys I know”.

TO YOU MAN

Sometimes your justification for raping her is, she provoked me with her dressing, or she exposed too much flesh, I see lots of guys walking around without their shirts on, so why don’t women wait in dark corners or simply bully men into unwanted sexual acts?

Let’s drop that excuse, it only worked for the first rapist, and even at that, it still didn’t hold water.

My advice to you, the next time you have the urge to force a woman to have sex with you…DON’T

The time has come for us to stop victim blaming, and tackle the growing rape culture in our societies, before something extremely tragic happens.

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5 thoughts on “The Growing Nigerian Rape Culture”

Systemic injustice breeds criminals! Until our society begins to take rape issues with utter seriousness and Punish rapists and sexual abusers, I am afraid the trend will keep increasing. Growing up, I liked playing with lit candles but wouldn’t do so because it could harm me. Like you rightly quoted, “A rapist rapes, simply because he feels he can” and more often than not, he is not made to face the consequences and the victim is made to bear the shame. Guys should learn to control their sexual urges (where necessary, seek psychologic/medical/spiritual help) and UNDERSTAND that “NO MEANS NO!”

Thanks for saying the truth brother, our society is the cause of all these. I want to encourage ladies to protect themselves by getting pepper sprays or perfumes in their bags with which they can spray into the eyes of a predator. They should also take self defense classes. We must defend ourselves. Ladies let’s support ourselves against these men or should I call them animals? Its well

Happy you were able to underline the cause of this,”Nothing is done bout it”.
I believe this also has alot to do with the society’s view on “The Nigerian woman.”

And then, there is also the fact that the the society doesn’t know the place of a woman. For exemple, little girl isn’t listened to, the teenage girl isn’t empowered, the young adult girl is pushed into marriage as soon as possible. And the married woman is considered “her husband’s propriety” in the sense that she doesn’t have a voice.

Guess it all boils down to the fact that the mentality NEEDS to change. Nice Job!